Atypical Development of Attentional Control Associates with Later Adaptive Functioning, Autism and ADHD Traits

Funder: H2020 European Research Council; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100010663Funder: Research Foundation FlandersFunder: Universiteit Gent; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004385Funder: Marguerite-Marie DelacroixFunder: Autistica; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011706Funder: Riksbankens Jubileumsfond; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004472; Grant(s): NHS14-1802:1Funder: K.F. Hein FondsFunder: Scott Family Junior Research FellowshipAbstract: Autism is frequently associated with difficulties with top-down attentional control, which impact on individuals’ mental health and quality of life. The developmental processes involved in these attentional difficulties are not well understood. Using a data-driven approach, 2 samples (N = 294 and 412) of infants at elevated and typical likelihood of autism were grouped according to profiles of parent report of attention at 10, 15 and 25 months. In contrast to the normative profile of increases in attentional control scores between infancy and toddlerhood, a minority (7–9%) showed plateauing attentional control scores between 10 and 25 months. Consistent with pre-registered hypotheses, plateaued growth of attentional control was associated with elevated autism and ADHD traits, and lower adaptive functioning at age 3 years

Emotion processing in the infant brain : The importance of local information

Facial expressions provide crucial information for an infant's social and cognitive development. Expressions are discriminated based on specific basic-level information, such as global and local information represented in spatial frequencies. Research in adults suggests that different neural pathways are involved in emotion discrimination, each activated by specific spatial frequency ranges. However, in infants the involvement of spatial frequencies in emotion discrimination is unknown. In the current study we investigated the effect of manipulating spatial frequency information in the face on emotion discrimination. Infants aged 9-10 months (N = 61) viewed happy, fearful, and neutral faces. The faces contained either lower (related to global information) or higher spatial frequencies (related to local information). Brain activity in response to the faces was measured with electroencephalography. Interest was in the effect of emotion and spatial frequency on the amplitude of the N290, P400, and Nc components. Amplitudes of the N290 and P400 components differed between happy versus fearful or neutral faces, although only in the higher, and not the lower, spatial frequency condition. Amplitude of the Nc components differed between happy versus fearful or neutral faces regardless of spatial frequency condition. These results reveal the importance of higher spatial frequencies for emotion discrimination in infants (particularly at the N290 and P400 components). We related these findings to current models on the neural basis of facial-emotion processing

Exploring emotional face processing in 5‐month‐olds: The relation with quality of parent–child interaction and spatial frequencies

It is unclear whether infants differentially process emotional faces in the brain at 5 months of age. Contradictory findings of previous research indicate that additional factors play a role in this process. The current study investigated whether five-month-old infants show differential brain activity between emotional faces. Furthermore, we explored the relation between emotional face processing and (I) stimulus characteristics, specifically the spatial frequency content, and (II) parent, child, and dyadic qualities of interaction characteristics. Face-sensitive components (i.e., N290, P400, Nc) in response to neutral and fearful faces that contained only lower or higher spatial frequencies were assessed. Quality of parent–child interaction was assessed with the Manchester Assessment of Caregiver Infant Interaction (MACI). The results show that, as a full group, none of the components differed between emotional expressions. However, when splitting the group based on median MACI scores, infants who showed high quality of interaction (i.e., more attentiveness to caregiver, positive and negative affect, and liveliness) processed emotions differently, whereas infants who showed low quality did not. These results indicate that a sub-group of infants show differential emotional face processing at 5 months of age, which seem to relate to quality of their behavior during the parent–child interaction

Emotion processing in the infant brain : The importance of local information

Facial expressions provide crucial information for an infant's social and cognitive development. Expressions are discriminated based on specific basic-level information, such as global and local information represented in spatial frequencies. Research in adults suggests that different neural pathways are involved in emotion discrimination, each activated by specific spatial frequency ranges. However, in infants the involvement of spatial frequencies in emotion discrimination is unknown. In the current study we investigated the effect of manipulating spatial frequency information in the face on emotion discrimination. Infants aged 9-10 months (N = 61) viewed happy, fearful, and neutral faces. The faces contained either lower (related to global information) or higher spatial frequencies (related to local information). Brain activity in response to the faces was measured with electroencephalography. Interest was in the effect of emotion and spatial frequency on the amplitude of the N290, P400, and Nc components. Amplitudes of the N290 and P400 components differed between happy versus fearful or neutral faces, although only in the higher, and not the lower, spatial frequency condition. Amplitude of the Nc components differed between happy versus fearful or neutral faces regardless of spatial frequency condition. These results reveal the importance of higher spatial frequencies for emotion discrimination in infants (particularly at the N290 and P400 components). We related these findings to current models on the neural basis of facial-emotion processing

Emotion processing in the infant brain : The importance of local information

Facial expressions provide crucial information for an infant's social and cognitive development. Expressions are discriminated based on specific basic-level information, such as global and local information represented in spatial frequencies. Research in adults suggests that different neural pathways are involved in emotion discrimination, each activated by specific spatial frequency ranges. However, in infants the involvement of spatial frequencies in emotion discrimination is unknown. In the current study we investigated the effect of manipulating spatial frequency information in the face on emotion discrimination. Infants aged 9-10 months (N = 61) viewed happy, fearful, and neutral faces. The faces contained either lower (related to global information) or higher spatial frequencies (related to local information). Brain activity in response to the faces was measured with electroencephalography. Interest was in the effect of emotion and spatial frequency on the amplitude of the N290, P400, and Nc components. Amplitudes of the N290 and P400 components differed between happy versus fearful or neutral faces, although only in the higher, and not the lower, spatial frequency condition. Amplitude of the Nc components differed between happy versus fearful or neutral faces regardless of spatial frequency condition. These results reveal the importance of higher spatial frequencies for emotion discrimination in infants (particularly at the N290 and P400 components). We related these findings to current models on the neural basis of facial-emotion processing

The Role of Global and Local Visual Information during Gaze-Cued Orienting of Attention

<div><p>Gaze direction is an important social communication tool. Global and local visual information are known to play specific roles in processing socially relevant information from a face. The current study investigated whether global visual information has a primary role during gaze-cued orienting of attention and, as such, may influence quality of interaction. Adults performed a gaze-cueing task in which a centrally presented face cued (valid or invalid) the location of a peripheral target through a gaze shift. We measured brain activity (electroencephalography) towards the cue and target and behavioral responses (manual and saccadic reaction times) towards the target. The faces contained global (i.e. lower spatial frequencies), local (i.e. higher spatial frequencies), or a selection of both global and local (i.e. mid-band spatial frequencies) visual information. We found a gaze cue-validity effect (i.e. valid versus invalid), but no interaction effects with spatial frequency content. Furthermore, behavioral responses towards the target were in all cue conditions slower when lower spatial frequencies were not present in the gaze cue. These results suggest that whereas gaze-cued orienting of attention can be driven by both global and local visual information, global visual information determines the speed of behavioral responses towards other entities appearing in the surrounding of gaze cue stimuli.</p></div

The stimuli and timing sequence used in the EEG (500ms) and ET (300ms) task.

<p>The illustration shows a valid trial. The face in this figure is derived from the MacBrain Face Stimulus Set, the model approved publication in scientific journals.</p

Is It Fear?: Similar Brain Responses to Fearful and Neutral Faces in Infants with a Heightened Likelihood for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show atypical processing of facial expressions. Research with autistic toddlers suggests that abnormalities in processing of spatial frequencies (SFs) contribute to such differences. The current event-related-potential (ERP) study investigated differences between 10-month-old infants with high- and low-likelihood for ASD in SF processing and in discrimination of fearful and neutral faces, filtered to contain specific SF. Results indicate no group differences in general processing of higher (HSF, detailed) and lower-SF (LSF, global) information. However, unlike low-likelihood infants, high-likelihood infants do not discriminate between facial expressions when either the LSF or HSF information is available. Combined with previous findings in toddlers, the current results indicate a developmental delay in efficient processing of facial expressions in ASD

The Role of Global and Local Visual Information during Gaze-Cued Orienting of Attention - Fig 1

<p><b>Example of an unfiltered face stimulus (A) and its low-pass (B), mid-pass (C) and high-pass (D) filtered versions.</b> The face in this figure is derived from the MacBrain Face Stimulus Set, the model approved publication in scientific journals.</p